Schools with no (or minimal) secondary essays

[About28]

There is already a post like this but it's 5 years old. I'm just curious which schools have minimal secondaries (either really short essays or single essays I'd have to write anyway i.e. diversity, why medicine or plans for this year).

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[snowflakes]

Have you tried going through last year's school specific threads and looking up schools you're interested in? Secondary prompts will be posted there. It's going to be hard to compile an exhaustive list of all schools with minimal secondaries.

Edit: That said, I agree with cybermaxx12 that this is not a good way to choose schools to apply to. No secondary means no chance to demonstrate interest in that school, or how you are a good fit for their mission.

 

[CyberMaxx]

There is already a post like this but it's 5 years old. I'm just curious which schools have minimal secondaries (either really short essays or single essays I'd have to write anyway i.e. diversity, why medicine or plans for this year).

There are a lot of ways to choose which medical schools to apply to... and this is just about the worst!

Seriously though, once you write a handful of essays you'll find that you are able to constantly reuse them with very minimal new writing. The only essay that you are going to have to write from scratch every time is the "Why this school?" prompt.

 

[nemo123]

Most school's secondaries tend to overlap prompt wise. Like @cybermaxx12 says, don't be selective with schools based on the easiness of their secondary. Also, schools with easy secondaries tend to have lots of applicants (ie BU).

 

[DielsAlder]

I copied and pasted this from a thread from 2010, but I am guessing not much has changed since then:
Albert Einstein
Buffalo
Drexel
Jefferson (1 optional essay)
Harvard (if a senior, and applying New Pathway)
Indiana
Mayo
MCW
NYMC
Rochester
St. Louis
SUNY Upstate
SUNY Buffalo
UCSF
UMDNJ - NJM
UMDNJ - RWJ
Texas Tech El Paso
University of Cincinnati (1 essay for those taking a year off)
University of Nebraska
University of Wisconsin (1 optional essay)
University of Tennessee
UT Galveston
UT Houston
UT San Antonio
Washington University - St. Louis (1 optional essay)
Wright State University

 

[AspiringERMD]

Washington University has one essay and two optional essays. I already did it.

 

[Spica]

U of Wisconsin has a section where you need to list all of your extracurricular activities in the last 5 years, so I wouldn't call it an easy secondary 😀.

 

[Person0715]

Both UMDNJ's have essays now. RWJ's professional competencies essay is like pulling teeth...

 

[AspiringERMD]

U of Wisconsin has a section where you need to list all of your extracurricular activities in the last 5 years, so I wouldn't call it an easy secondary 😀.

I don't think I'm dreading any other secondary more. So redundant...

 

[karayaa]

There is this thread from 2010
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...-questions-from-schools.807079/#post-10763720

It's a useful question if you want to apply to too many schools, and want to see which will require the most work.
If you know you want to go to all of them already, you can look to see if you can squeeze in one more without overloading yourself.

But yeah, don't make your school list on presence or absence of 2ºs alone.

 

[Abstractions]

Washington University has one essay and two optional essays. I already did it.

Where did you find this information? Looking at the school-specific thread leads me to believe that there is only one optional essay.

 

[AspiringERMD]

Where did you find this information? Looking at the school-specific thread leads me to believe that there is only one optional essay.

The secondary for WashU St. Louis is already open. See this year's school-specific thread.

 

[2015istheYear]

I copied and pasted this from a thread from 2010, but I am guessing not much has changed since then:
Albert Einstein
Buffalo
Drexel
Jefferson (1 optional essay)
Harvard (if a senior, and applying New Pathway)
Indiana
Mayo
MCW
NYMC
Rochester
St. Louis
SUNY Upstate
SUNY Buffalo
UCSF
UMDNJ - NJM
UMDNJ - RWJ
Texas Tech El Paso
University of Cincinnati (1 essay for those taking a year off)
University of Nebraska
University of Wisconsin (1 optional essay)
University of Tennessee
UT Galveston
UT Houston
UT San Antonio
Washington University - St. Louis (1 optional essay)
Wright State University

Hope this still applies because 10 of these are on my list! I know some prefer a secondary essay to maximize their sales pitch, but I kind of feel like the primary has given me plenty of space to do so. There is so much repetition in many of them.

 

[NeuResurgens]

I feel like secondaries may be a good way to set yourself apart, though.

 

[Snivellus]

Off the top of my head, Buffalo and NYMC had short secondaries last year.

 

[sharkbyte]

MCW added an essay this past cycle.

 

[amad01]

After I made a list of about 25 schools, I threw in a handful that had very cheap or low effort secondaries. Nothing wrong with throwing in more simple chances to increase your odds. I also dropped/swapped a few schools that I either received the secondary late and already had interviews at better schools or decided to drop a few higher tier. I think it's good to have a handful of cheap/easy secondary schools you can throw in

 

[justadream]

I feel like secondaries may be a good way to set yourself apart, though.

But that's also a bad thing for half the people.

Because if some people are setting themselves apart by being relatively better, than others are setting themselves part by being relatively worse. It's ultimately a zero-sum game.

For people who are limited in time (by having to do tons of secondaries), it may be better to have no secondary (neutral) than to have to do secondary and then do one tha is below average (and by definition, half the people are going to have below average secondaries).

 

[Spector1]

Off the top of my head, Buffalo and NYMC had short secondaries last year.

NYMC has CASPer now which is a huge pain